The present invention relates to a system for establishing connections between two individuals. Additionally, the present invention provides a system for displaying information about a telephone caller to a telephone agent.
Various systems have been developed that allow two individuals to communicate with one another. With the growth of the Internet and other networks and information distribution systems, individuals are accessing and retrieving data and other information in new ways. For example, an individual desiring information about a particular company, organization, or product, may search the Internet or other information sources to obtain the desired information. In certain instances, the information located by the individual may not contain all of the information desired by the individual. When this occurs, the individual must continue searching other information sources, or contact the company or organization providing the information on the Internet. Thus, an individual might obtain a portion of the desired information from a manufacturer""s web site, but still require additional information about the product which is not provided at the web site. In this case, the individual may contact the manufacturer by placing a telephone call to the manufacturer to talk with a representative in an attempt to obtain the additional information. To place this telephone call, the individual must first locate the telephone number of the manufacturer and manually place a call to the manufacturer, and perhaps navigate the manufacturer""s telephone answering system to locate a representative capable of providing the additional desired information. This approach can be tedious in that the proper phone number to contact the manufacturer may not be readily available, and the individual may be uncertain as to the proper person or the proper department at the manufacturer that can provide the desired information.
In situations where an individual calls an organization to talk to an agent of the organization, the organization may obtain the telephone number of the caller or other information for properly handling the call (e.g., selecting an appropriate agent to answer the call). Various information about the caller (e.g., prior purchases and account balance) may be displayed to the agent before the call is answered. In existing systems, a custom software application is executed on the agent""s computer to retrieve and display information about the caller. This custom software application must be installed on each agent""s computer. Additionally, if the information to be displayed about a caller changes, corresponding changes may be necessary, in the custom computer application installed on each agent""s computer. Changes in the layout of information on the display may also require changes or upgrades to the custom computer applications.
It is therefore desirable to provide a system that easily connects an individual (such as an individual viewing a web page) to a representative of the organization (such as the organization associated with the web page). Furthermore, it is desirable to provide a system that uses a non-custom software application to retrieve and display information.
Embodiments of the present invention provide a system for establishing communications between two individuals.
An embodiment of the invention receives a request for agent contact from a user. The request includes an identifier associated with a web page being viewed by the user. An agent is selected to contact the user based on the content of the web page being viewed by the user. The identifier associated with the web page is then transmitted to the selected agent. The system then establishes a connection between the user and the agent.
Other embodiments of the invention display the identified web page to the agent.
In another embodiment of the invention, the identifier associated with the web page identifies the web page being viewed by the user at the time of entering the request for agent contact.
An embodiment of the invention selects an agent to contact the user based on the content of the web page being viewed by the user at the time the request for agent contact is entered.
Other embodiments of the invention handle an incoming call by generating a web page that contains information about the caller. Information about the caller is based on the telephone number of the incoming call. An identifier associated with the generated web page is transmitted to an agent that will answer the call.